Michael S. Allen [Ph.D.]

The Ocean of Inquiry: A Neglected Classic of Late Advaita Vedānta

The Ocean of Inquiry is a vernacular compendium of Advaita Vedānta, one of the most influential traditions of South Asian religion and philosophy, especially in modern times. Its author, Niścaldās (ca. 1791–1863), was a classically trained pandit and a sādhu of the Dādū Panth. His work was widely read in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both in its Hindi original and in regional translations: Vivekananda once referred to it as the most influential book in India. Surprisingly, however, The Ocean of Inquiry remains virtually unknown to Western scholars; even specialists in Hinduism have rarely heard of it. This dissertation aims to draw attention both to Niścaldās's work and to the broader genre of vernacular Vedānta; it also calls into question the notion that late Advaita Vedānta represents a period of intellectual decline.

Part I provides a historical and textual overview of The Ocean of Inquiry, arguing that Niścaldās's work should be situated within what might be termed “Greater Advaita Vedānta,” or Advaita Vedānta as it was disseminated outside the received canon of Sanskrit philosophical works. This part of the dissertation also offers the first comprehensive biography of Niścaldās in English, and it analyzes the significance of his choice to write in the vernacular.

Part II investigates the relationship of philosophy and religious practice in Niścaldās's work. Taking as its starting point the question “What does it mean for knowledge to liberate?” this part of the dissertation argues that for Niścaldās, the key distinction is not between theoretical knowledge and liberating knowledge but between doubtful and doubt-free awareness. For those who are properly qualified, the central practice on the path to liberation is the practice of inquiry (vicāra), interpreted as a dialectical process of raising and removing doubts. This interpretation is supported with three “case studies” of characters in The Ocean of Inquiry who reach liberation. The conclusion is that for Niścaldās, philosophical inquiry is not a purely theoretical undertaking; under the right conditions, it can become a concrete religious practice.

Adviser: Parimal G. Patil

Elizabeth Gish [Th.D.]

The Rhetoric of Sexual Purity in Contemporary Conservative U. S. Christianity

Sexual purity rhetoric produced by conservative Christian individuals and institutions shapes U.S. religious and political life in profound ways. Yet, there has not been a study of the scope or the results of sexual purity rhetoric. This dissertation addresses this gap in research on religious life in the U.S. The central question asked in this study includes not only, “What does sexual purity rhetoric say?” but also, “What does it do?” I use a critical feminist lens to analyze the sexual purity rhetoric deployed in the most popular purity rituals and practices—rallies, retreats, parties, pledge signings, and father-daughter purity balls—and in a significant cross-section of the printed and online literature.

Sexuality rhetoric is challenging to analyze because it not only does something different than it says, but what it says often contradicts and obscures what it does. Sexual purity rhetoric says that its purpose is to help adolescents delay sexual activity prior to heterosexual marriage. The prevention of sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, and heartbreak are the most common arguments made as to why adolescents should refrain from sexual activity prior to heterosexual marriage. Yet, the evidence is overwhelming that sexual purity teachings do not reduce pregnancy or rates of sexually transmitted infection, nor are they effective in meaningfully delaying or in preventing sexual activity prior to heterosexual marriage. If sexual purity rhetoric has virtually no impact on adolescent sexual activity, what does it do? My analysis shows that it functions as a structuring and regulating framework for personal and communal relationships, as well as a normative framework for theo-political beliefs and practices. It contributes to constructing a world where purity status determines the moral quality of relationships—with God, the church, potential partners, the nation, and, in the case of adolescents, with parents. It is used normatively to shape, and analytically to understand, a wide range of relationships, and physical, mental, and spiritual states. Sexual purity rhetoric is both sustained by and sustaining of kyriarchal structures that disadvantage and harm people of color, women, girls, queer–identified people, poor people, and immigrants who do not and cannot conform to impossible-to-meet sexual purity ideals.

Adviser: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza

James Nicholas Jumper [Ph.D.]

Honor and Shame in the Deuteronomic Covenant and the Deuteronomistic Presentation of the Davidic Covenant

The purpose of this dissertation is to identify the semantics of honor and shame in the Hebrew Bible and to demonstrate how these social values intersect with Israel's fundamental social organizing principle, covenant. Though many scholars have claimed that honor and shame are pivotal values for biblical Israel and that covenant is fundamental to her conception of the divine-human relationship, no work attempting to explore the juncture of these two important social phenomena has appeared. Thus, our study has two major goals: 1) establish the semantics of honor and shame in the Hebrew Bible; and 2) demonstrate that honor and shame, however conceived in context, are pivotal to biblical Israel's understanding of her covenantal relationship with yhwh in Deuteronomy 28 and 2 Samuel 7.

With regard to Deuteronomy 28, which defines Israel's understanding of covenantal fidelity, we show that honor is depicted as pre-eminent military and economic status among the nations and as a major goal of the covenantal blessings and is designed to motivate Israel to greater loyalty (vv. 1, 13). Shame, however, is not just the loss of pre-eminent status (vv. 44, 48), but also the loss of social existence (v. 68). The explicit covenantal formulation of both values appears to be unique to Israel, despite her adoption of other ancient Near Eastern treaty forms.

With regard to the 2 Samuel 7, we argue that yhwh honors David and Zadok with eternal royal and priestly positions because Saul and Eli failed to honor yhwh (e.g., 1 Sam 2:30), but also because David and Zadok would honor him with their loyalty (e.g., 2:35). As a result, yhwh grants David “a name like the name of all of the great ones of the earth” (2 Sam 7:9), denoting David's military superiority (cf. 8:13). We also show that the rejection of David's offer to build yhwh a temple (an embarrassment to David) and yhwh's counter offer to build David a dynasty (an honoring of David) is not evidence of different literary strata. yhwh rejects the offer on two grounds: 1) The Deity wishes to ensure that his gift to the king is free; and 2) yhwh is more honored by securing David's throne than David is by building a monumental structure (a symbol of prestige and power) at a time when the king's grasp on the throne is tenuous (e.g., 1 Kgs 5:3). Moreover, we show that from a Deuteronomistic perspective, the discipline of the Davidides in 2 Sam 7:14–15 entails royal shaming (1 Kgs 11:31). Thus, we prove that, while honor and shame are variously conceived in both covenants, they are pivotal to our understanding of the divine-human relationship in the Hebrew Bible.

Adviser: Jon D. Levenson

Hilary Kapfer [Ph.D.]

Collective Accountability among the Sages of Ancient Israel

The purpose of this dissertation is to consider the comments of Israel's biblical wisdom traditions on collective accountability in a systematic way. In order to accomplish this, each of five biblical wisdom books—Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Ben Sira, and Wisdom of Solomon—will be examined individually. The investigation of each book will include an examination of any statement that refers to collective or individual accountability and of the author's position on the power of wisdom instruction to help the student overcome intergenerational punishment passed down to him by a sinful parent. In addition to a comprehensive look at biblical wisdom books, this study will also consider a proverb concerning collective punishment known from two prophetic books, Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 18, and the use of the divine attribute formula (Exod 34:6–7), which describes yhwh as a deity who exercises collective punishment and reward, in wisdom texts. My analyses of these investigations produce the following conclusions: 1) The concept of collective accountability is not restricted to Israel's narrative, legal, and prophetic traditions. Israel's sages were familiar with and made use of the concept. 2) Israel's sages’ use of collective accountability often differs from the concept's depiction in other parts of the Hebrew Bible. For the sages, collective accountability serves pedagogical functions and vindicates divine justice. 3) The representation of collective accountability in Israel's biblical wisdom tradition is not static. As the wisdom tradition itself undergoes developments, such as including historical and literary references or drawing upon non-biblical philosophical positions, so too does its depiction of collective accountability. 4) Israel's wisdom literature is not, as is often claimed, concerned solely with the individual. Communal notions held importance for Israel's sages.

Adviser: Peter Machinist

John Travis Noble [Ph.D.]

“Let Ishmael Live Before You!”: Finding a Place for Hagar's Son in the Priestly Tradition

Since Julius Wellhausen's synthesis of the Documentary Hypothesis—and no doubt owing in part to the Protestant Reformation—dominant portrayals of the Priestly material have described a self-interested legist with little or no concern for those outside the Levitical ranks. Though this negative characterization is recognized by some to be reductionist and misguided, none has undertaken to examine Ishmael's critical role in what is better understood as a universal mode of thinking in P. Examining first the narratives that give indication of Ishmael's status in J and E, I have contrasted Ishmael with the other non-chosen siblings in Genesis, concluding that he is favored in these sources in a way that the others are not; also, that Ishmael and his mother adumbrate not only the distress of Israel's bondage in Egypt, but also their deliverance. With this background from J and E, I have sought to elucidate P's relationship to these sources through its representation of Ishmael in the Abrahamic covenant. It appears that P has recast the promises that Ishmael receives in J and E so that Ishmael is more explicitly excluded from God's covenant with Abraham, on the one hand; but P also identifies Ishmael with the blessing of fertility, invoking the divine injunction to all humanity through both Adam and Noah to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 17:20), on the other. P's emphasis on fertility also relates to Ishmael's own participation—though he is non-chosen—in circumcision as the sign of the covenant. Therefore P accounts for God's universal regard for humanity through Ishmael even in his particular covenant with Abraham.

I argue that even though Ishmael is not chosen, he nevertheless figures into P's larger theological outlook as one whom God favors outside the purview of the Abrahamic covenant. A correlative argument is that this new understanding of Ishmael gives him a more precise definition as a transitional figure between the universal covenant with Noah, on the one hand, and the particular covenant with Abraham, on the other.

Adviser: Jon D. Levenson

Matthew L. Potts [Ph.D.]

The Frail Agony of Grace: Story, Act, and Sacrament in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy

Although scholars have widely acknowledged the prevalence of religious reference in the work of Cormac McCarthy, no studies have yet paid any adequate attention to the most pervasive religious trope in all his works: the image of sacrament, and in particular, of eucharist. I contend that a thorough and appropriately informed study of sacrament in the work of Cormac McCarthy can uniquely illuminate his whole body of writing and I undertake that study in this dissertation.

Two things are obvious in the writings of Cormac McCarthy: that these novels attempt to establish some sort of moral system in light of metaphysical collapse, and that they are often adorned with sacramental imagery. My argument is that these two facts can and do intelligibly speak to one another, and that a particular theological understanding of sacrament demonstrates how. By reading McCarthy alongside postmodern accounts of action, identity, subjectivity, and narration, I show how he exploits Christian theology in order to locate the value of human acts and relations in a sacramentally immanent way. This is not to claim McCarthy for theology, but it is to assert that McCarthy generates an account of what goodness might look like in a death-ridden world through reference to the theological tradition of sacrament.

I begin by addressing the scope and source of McCarthy's violence. In Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men I read McCarthy as following Nietzsche in scorning an ascetic ideal that locates the value of life beyond life. The ideas of reason and fate in Nietzsche as they develop in Adorno and Arendt are then studied in these same novels. Arendtian ideas of action deeply influence my reading of Suttree next, and this leads into a study of storytelling in the three novels of the border trilogy which is again deeply indebted to Arendtian notions of narration. Last, I look to contemporary theology and The Road for examples of sacrament that can cohere these various themes under a single sign and establish some ground for a postmodern morality.

Adviser: Amy Hollywood

Katherine A. Shaner [Th.D.]

The Religious Practices of the Enslaved: A Case Study of Roman Ephesos

Enslaved persons were ubiquitous in the first- and second-century c.e. Roman Empire, and early Christian texts, in particular, reflect this fact. Nevertheless, the implications of enslaved presence in religious practices are under-examined in early Christian and Roman history. Moreover, previous scholarship often builds on the assumptions that enslaved persons who did participate in religious practices either functioned as extensions of their masters, or performed roles in subjection to elite leaders.

Employing early Christian texts and archaeological materials associated with the Roman city of Ephesos as a test case, this dissertation demonstrates that enslaved persons’ roles in civic and religious activities were contested precisely because they held leadership positions. I use feminist rhetorical analysis, which is sensitive to attempts at persuasion, to interpret literary texts, and I extend its methods to archaeological materials. Thus, this dissertation traces the rhetorical attempt to regulate enslaved persons’ presence in early Christian writings, such as Philemon, 1 Timothy, and Ignatius's letter to Polycarp, and in materials from archaeological excavations in Ephesos.

This dissertation concludes that enslaved persons enacted roles that potentially upended social hierarchies privileging wealthy, slave-holding men. Enslaved persons were priests, religious specialists, and leaders in cultic groups, including early Christian groups. At the same time these roles were neither signs of Roman slavery's benign nature nor evidence that early Christians were more tolerant of enslaved participation. Rather, Christian constructions of authority and communal structure participated in a larger social, political, and religious contestation around enslaved leadership in the Roman world. Thus, this dissertation contributes to a conversation in Roman history and early Christian studies around the historio-graphy of enslaved history. It analyzes the rhetorical bent of both literary texts and archaeological materials demonstrating that within the exploitative nature of Roman slavery, enslaved persons had the ability to enact limited authority.

Adviser: Laura S. Nasrallah

Keith A. Stone [Ph.D.]

Singing Moses's Song: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Deuteronomy's Song of Moses

Starting from the observation that Deuteronomy commands a tradition of performing the Song of Moses (Deut 32:1–43), in this dissertation I explore ways in which the performance of the Song contributes to Deuteronomy's educational program through an effect on those who perform the Song. I employ a performance-based approach that stresses the dynamic of re-enactment that operates in traditions of performance; I argue that performers of the Song are to be transformed as they re-enact not only the characters within the Song but also those who came before them in the history of the Song's performance, particularly yhwh and Moses, whom Deuteronomy depicts as that tradition's founders. In support of this thesis, I provide a close reading of the text of the Song (as preserved in Deuteronomy and as informed by Deuteronomy's account of its origins and subsequent history) that examines how the persona of the performer interacts with these re-enacted personas in the moment of performance. I also argue that the various composers of Deuteronomy themselves participated in the tradition of performing the Song, adducing examples from throughout the book in which certain elements originally found in the Song have been adopted, elaborated, acted out, or simply mimicked while being put to another use.

Adviser: Jo Ann Hackett